


do better

by raewrites



Series: Mini Fics [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Character Death, M/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-18
Updated: 2015-03-18
Packaged: 2018-03-18 10:49:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3566888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raewrites/pseuds/raewrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There used to be fields of flowers, Iwaizumi remembers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	do better

**Author's Note:**

> I need to stop killing Iwaizumi.

_There used to be fields of flowers, Iwaizumi remembers._  
  
Flowers that danced together in time with the wind whistling between their stems, shades of soft lilac dotting the expansive landscape for as far as he could see, at that time only just tall enough to peek above the horizon of tall grasses on his tip-toes.  
  
Iwaizumi had been the one to bring Oikawa to the field of flowers for the first time, the other following him at a distance, revealed by a betraying tickle of the nose.  
  
They were young once, everyone is.  
  
Young for a fleeting length of time, smiles honest and numerous, eyes curious, hands and lips even more so, encountering a terrain startlingly familiar; finding a path there, overgrown with moss and roots but walked upon before.  
  
They’re fifteen and Oikawa’s eyes are still brown when Iwaizumi pulls away from his lips with a gasp of breath stirred between his ribs, replaced by a deafening heartbeat that starts in his chest, that he feels in his temples when Oikawa smiles.  
  
"You probably shouldn’t have done that." Oikawa’s voice is just above a whisper, breath scratching against the lining of his throat, grating from between his lips. His eyes betray his words, creased at the corners with laughter lines Iwaizumi remembers were once charming rather than cruel.  
  
"Well, I did."   
  
"Why don’t you do it again?"  
  
If Iwaizumi were the author of his own story he would have ended it there, with a definitive period and a closed cover.  
  
_Death is too common a tragedy._  
  
Too weak to stand, Iwaizumi wishes the sky were a reflective surface so he should see the fields of flowers in all of their expanse one last time. Instead, he only sees those that border his vision, blurring steadily, blurring too fast; taunting him for a scene he once took advantage of, a scene that lies so close but so far beyond his physical capacity.  
  
Oikawa’s eyes are red like that which taints the flowers beside him. That which sinks into the earth, marking a grave in the fields that had once been theirs.   
  
"Stop," he breathes, repeating himself until Oikawa hears him over his own chaotic mumbling, until he can see himself in the reflection of the other’s eyes, "Just stop."  
  
There are tears burning in the corners of Oikawa’s eyes, spilling over to curve around his cheekbones, dripping from the jut of his chin and Iwaizumi wonders if he’s crying as well, or whether the constricting around his heart is yet another inconvenience of death.  
  
"Don’t look at me." He knows exactly what the words will do to the other, knows they cut sharper than the edge of his blade, and Iwaizumi wonders when he stopped caring about impressions. But it’s in the glistening reflection of Oikawa’s eyes as he tears them away from Iwaizumi that he sees them, the flowers that so define his fading memory, torn out in past pages of a novel he wishes weren’t ending.  
  
"Tooru."  
  
The other is stubborn, only looking back as a rattling cough punctures itself between Iwaizumi’s lips.  
  
"I’ll see you again."  
  
He says it as if he has power over such things, as if the light approaching him from between the low-hanging clouds doesn’t terrify him, wouldn’t have caused his heart to beat a little faster had it not been so weak already.  
  
Eyelids heavy, his last, shallow breath is a promise.  
  
"I’ll do better. Next time."  
  
Iwaizumi opens his eyes at dawn the next morning, the next life, blinking in a bleary state of wakefulness. The words echo incessantly in his mind, willing themselves to be remembered as the rest of the scene fades in the wake of consciousness.   
  
Rolling over, he’s encountered with Oikawa next to him, curled beneath the sheets, tugging them around himself in a way that would normally have Iwaizumi yanking them from his grasp in chilled irritability.   
  
Instead he stares, measuring the distant concept of betterment in the steadiness of Oikawa’s breath, the flutter of his eyelids, the slackened grip on Iwaizumi’s sleep shirt between his fingers.  
  
Swinging his legs off the opposite side of the bed and standing, stretching his arms above his head and inhaling to the pit of his lungs, Iwaizumi quirks an eyebrow, noting the sudden absence before truly comprehending its presence, glancing around the room for its source, already slipping away as he blinks in the morning light from between their curtains.  
  
The sound of wind whistling over a field.  
  
And something he swears smelled of flowers.


End file.
